Waterford look too worldly

Dave Keanes punt for greenhorns in Limerick will put pressure on the teams faultlines and Justin McCarthy will be there to take advantage, writes Denis Walsh

WHEN the bookies are offering evens your choice you know the match is a bloody mystery. Those odds amount to entrapment, daring you to find a conviction about the outcome from somewhere. How are we to know? Neither Limerick nor Waterford had the decency to put together the kind of promising League run that we could smugly dismember now, identifying the deceptions and the outright lies, while casually neglecting to reach the truth of the matter.

Instead we’re reduced to naked speculation. On the face of it Dave Keane is taking a punt which resembles the one Tom Ryan took with Limerick nine years ago. For that Munster semi-final against Cork, Ryan gave six newcomers their stripes; this afternoon Keane bloods five. But there the analogy ends.

Ryan’s team was structured on hardened campaigners and half of the debutantes were in their mid-20s. Keane has plunged on youth. Ten of